Loss
by rtqno
Summary: What exactly happened between Jessie and Cassidy to make them such mortal enemies? This is a prologue to the story The Past Informs the Present".
1. Forsaken

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Forsaken

There is a girl sitting in a room. It is one of those clinical little holes in the wall found in

low slung, one story administrative office complexes occupied by down at the heels, threadbare social service agencies. The walls are a flat institutional cream, decorated with happy little children's drawings dominated by a splashy poster with broadly smiling adults and children. It states grandly "Foster Families Make Good Citizens". The girl would spit at the poster, but she wouldn't waste the saliva.

She's really quite pretty. Tall for her age which is about twelve. She has red hair, lots of it, she has it piled and pinned atop her head with a long braid hanging off to the left. She's managed to get her ears pierced and wears small green stud earrings. She has cadged makeup off the staff and looks eerily precocious with her eye-lined cat's blue eyes, deep red lips, and lavender eye shadow. Her good looks are spoiled somewhat by a sullen introspective glare not improved by the fact that she's been waiting in this boring hellhole for almost half and hour.

The door opens and in steps a pleasant faced middle aged man in a Fair Isle sweater with wavy brown hair, and mild, kind brown eyes. "Hullo Jessie," he says tentatively.

Her expression has changed, her eyes look pleading, her cheeks colour, her lips part. "Uh, Hi....Dad," she says with even greater tentativeness.

Look. Mom, I mean Joy, couldn't come, she's looking after your sis...um, Cassie. And she didn't, I mean couldn't, bring herself to see you," he sadly notes.

Did you tell her I still wanna be a pokémon nurse, no matter what?"

Look, how could I talk about that with her after all the stuff that's happened?"

She looks quickly at the floor, "I suppose you couldn't," she murmurs contritely.

You know Jessica we still...like you, but you've hurt us a lot. I know you've been kicked around a lot in the foster care system, but I really thought we could make it work. You're smart, and you've got spirit, but you misuse those gifts, and we just can't take your lying, screaming its, lashing out, and stealing anymore. We've got a daughter of our own, and after what you did to her...well that's it, we can't handle you any more. I'm sorry. I'm really, really so sorry."

She looks at him briefly, then looks at the wall, Did you get, I mean did you give Cass the get-well-card I made?"

Yes, and she sort of liked it at first, then she Threw it away. She won't even speak your name anymore," he observes, "You know, they be took out the stitches today. There'll be a scar, but it could be worse I suppose. That's what Joy and I worry about," he pauses, "Worse things..."

I really didn't mean it!" she cries her voice breaking, "I won't ever do anything like it again! I promise!"

You're a violent, angry girl Jess. I don't think you can keep such a promise, even though you mean to do so."

"You don't care about me! Nobody ever has!" she insists.

"Not true Jessie. I only wish I could have been there to protect you from all those foster fathers who hurt you until you lost all control of that temper of yours, but that's not how it was."

"Oh Dad...Mr. Yamato, couldn't you take me back? Yours was the best home I've ever been in! I need you!" she's pleading, begging.

No, I'm sorry. Joy and I are decided, besides Cassie would make your life hell just to provoke another outburst. Why did you two have to fight over that boy anyway?"

She goes silent and turns to the wall. "Don't I have a right to know why you attacked my daughter so viciously?"

No answer. "This is exactly why we can't keep you on Jessica."

He stands up, runs his fingers exasperatedly through his hair and says, "I came here because I really wanted to say goodbye, and to wish you luck. I'm sorry, I really am. I wanted so much to get you to womanhood, because Joy and I were sure when we first laid eyes on you that you were going to be something special. Sadly, you've proven especially damaged and damaging. I hope things turn around for you some day, I wish we could have helped you more. Take care."

With that he turns away from the stone faced girl, opens the door and leaves, closing it with a soft but terrifyingly final click. Something clicks in Jessie's head too. She closes her eyes, takes a deep breath, and waits for the social worker to return.

She sheds no tears until she has laid her head on the pillow to go to sleep.


	2. Damage

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Damage

She touches her face. Her slender finger runs along the thin red three inch streak down the right cheek from just below her eye to the corner of her mouth. She looks in the mirror and allows a tear to run down this ugly reminder. She used to like the way she looked, a lot of it is still there. The dark violet eyes, the long flaxen hair, the mouth is still pretty, small with well proportioned lips, she has a slender rather sharp nose that makes her look regal. Now there is this...blemish. She will always need to cover it, always see it after every shower and every morning upon awakening. She had almost knocked that glass out of Jessie's hand but she was too strong, she still grasped it after it shattered in dozens of lethal shards. Then Jessie lost it. "Maybe I shouldn't have pushed so hard, let my tongue do the cutting, then lashing out with my hand. No, it was all Jessie's fault, surely not mine."

She surveys the waste basket. Mom had yet to dump it and that simpering hand made card still sits atop the used floss and facial tissues. "Cassie please get better, I'm really sorry! Can we be sisters again? - Jess". "Never! You wicked...!" "Cassie!" it's mom, "Your dad's home from social services." She sighs, looks at her flawed face again and heads for the stairs.

Her mom and dad are near the front door at the foot of the stairs. "So did you tell her off dad?" she asks as she descends the stairs.

He looks darkly at her, "Have a little sympathy Cass. We just turned a girl out of her home."

"That's no girl, she's an alleycat! Look at my face it you doubt it."

Her mother, a red haired woman with looped braids at either side of her rather round face with sympathetic blue eyes, looks sharply at her, "Cassidy! This was a hard thing for your father and I to do. She's a girl with a lot of promise and spirit. She even wanted to go into nursing. You haven't shown much interest in anything except pokémon, shoplifting, and boys."

"Yeah and I shared all of 'em with Jess," Cassidy thinks, "She wanted to share one

too many boys."

"Look mom, give me a good reason to miss her."

Joy Yamato sighs and, not for the first time, tries to understand her bitter, distant, seemingly unreachable daughter. "I suppose I won't change your mind, but I still care about Jessica, dear."

"If you don't want to talk about something important I'm outta here," Cassidy says dismissively.

"Fine, be that way," says Geoff Yamato, "We should have known better than to take a girl about your age into foster care, although I swear it was a better idea than a boy."

She is already halfway up the stairs trying to ignore her father's parting shot.

"And another thing young lady we've decided to keep you away from that delinquent Butch Kosaburo. We're taking you out of Pokémon Tech, it'll save us tuition money anyway," her father is coldly angry.

She turns around, her eyes filled with fury and defiance, "If you think that'll keep me from seeing Butch you sure don't know me. Just try and keep track of me!"

Her parents look up at her from the front hall, their eyes reveal as much fear as anger and determination. She smirks cruelly at them, and returns to the journey up to her room.

Once in her room, the one she used to share with that red haired demon, she throws herself on her bed. Oh Jessie, the fire that once complemented her own ice. The enforcer and the assassin, that's who they were. But Jess insisted on going after Butch, that was where she had to draw the line. She had no idea that the battling would become so destructive, surely a girl as pretty as Jess could find someone else. Maybe Butch led her on, no that couldn't be, Butch was her guy no one else's. She banishes the thought as best she can. She badly underestimated Jessie's anger that's for sure. Never again, she'll never turn her back on a snake like that again, even a loser like Jessie. She gets up and goes into her closet and picks out a large suitcase. She opens it and lays it across her bed. "Let's see, what do I need," she thinks.

She works her way methodically through her two dressers and closet, carefully picking clothing and laying it into the luggage. She slips down the hall to the bathroom and collects what she needs. She looks into the mirror again and selects some pancake makeup and carefully covers the line running down her cheek. She puts on the large triangle earrings she five finger discounted two months ago with Jessie (Jess had made off with some big, tacky green ball studs). She likes the earrings, they give her a rakish look.

She softly treads back to her room, and picks up a cell phone from her dresser and punches out a familiar number. She rolls her eyes toward the ceiling as she waits for Butch to pick up. "Hey Butch, I'm outta here. Are you with me? Good. I wanna meet those 'friends' you talked about. Yeah I'm leaving here," she listens to his lengthy reply softly tapping her left foot. "Um, sure I guess we could raid mom's Poké Centre. I'm sure I can get you in. Yeah don't mention it. See you soon," She makes a kissing sound into the mouthpiece. She punches the phone, smiles, and flushes ever so slightly. She'll leave tonight, she's not sure she wants to but it's gotten too tough at home, even without that red haired girl around anymore. Her folks will never let her forget about the girl, maybe they loved her more than her. One thing she is sure of, she has to be free, and she will be.


	3. Truancy

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Truancy

Night has fallen and she is alone. Jessie slipped out the side door of social services about a half hour ago. She has acquired a talent for escape, lord knows she needed it with a couple of her foster dads. The woman at the desk near the door enjoyed her company, this witty, waspish but somehow charming red haired girl. The phone rang, the girl had been there chatting about a fashion magazine on the desk, then she was gone. The woman decided she had gotten bored and gone back to her room, but she had actually whisked out the door into the dusky streets.

She is on a mission to see her most recent foster mom, her target is the Pokémon Centre near the city's central square. She has had better times, yesterday her foster dad had cut her loose because she knew how to use a piece of glass to defend herself. She had cried herself to sleep, and awakened determined to pursue her foster mother's career of pokémon nurse. She's not entirely sure why, maybe it's because she really enjoys pokémon. Some of her best memories are of playing with family pets. Often the pokémon were the best part of a home, like the rather brutal couple who kept an umbreon as a night watch. That animal could be really frightening, but it had a sweetness at its core that the kindred Jessie had unearthed with no fuss at all. Many of the pokémon she has embraced would cause others to recoil, she had even played with an ariados at one of her way stations. She realizes this is because she's an outcast too. That's why she will be a great pokémon nurse, she doesn't play favourites, fawning on the cute little pikachus and neglecting the raticates. Besides this Joy has seemingly had warm feelings for her, and hopes for her future. She smirks recalling last winter when Joy had wholeheartedly helped her prepare a snow meal like her first foster mom used to whip up complete with soy sauce and seaweed wrappers. Boy did Cassidy hate that, the spoiled fair-haired brat had been scandalized. How Jessie and Joy had laughed at Cassidy's reaction after they had left the dining room.

Her thoughts uncomfortably turn to her former roommate. Cassidy, what a piece of work, by turns unknowable, conspiratorial, scathingly funny in an acrid way, smoothly charming, and utterly cold and implacable when angered. Jessie had rather liked running with Cass, they were a two woman gang. Jessie did the heavy lifting and brought up ideas, Cass had done the planning and overseen the execution of their plans. Once the wheels were spinning Cassidy could see things from all angles and plan the perfect crime. "Why did I bother with all that stealing and vandalism?" Jessie asks herself. "Because it was wicked fun, silly!" especially with the devil may care Cass along. Then Cassidy had brought this older boy into their plans.

Butch, how handsome, such sweet looks, a perfect cavalier, he seemed to have no scruples whatsoever, and no fear either. Boy, he was cool. Cassidy clearly was attracted to him, although she tried to act demure with him, at least around Jessie. When Butch had showed some interest in Jess, she remembers blushing and immediately opening up to him. He seemed amused, when he grabbed her waist she didn't resist. Cassidy had come through the door then, and turned bright red, screamed a string of words that made Jessie ache for a notepad, and thrown herself at her as Butch deftly turned her loose and spun out of harm's way. Jessie had a glass of Southern Comfort in her hand and Cassidy's wild swing smashed both hand and glass. Jessie reacted instinctively, and had run for it after staring in horror at the torrent of blood running down the howling Cassidy's face. The Yamatos had gone to the emergency room and received Cassidy's version of events first. That pretty much sealed Jessie's fate, "Nobody ever believes me, I'm a proven liar," she sighs inwardly.

***************************************

Cassidy quietly slips out the back door with her suitcase. Her Dad is in the den working on another damned paper for some obscure journal, her Mom should be coming home from the poké centre by now. She quietly closes the door, holding it so as not to let it slam. She heaves a sigh, tosses her golden locks, feeling her dangling earrings touch her face. She crosses the neighbour's lawn and walks up the street. Butch is there as she turns the corner. There is a dark blue BMW with the motor running at the curb where he stands. Two men in their twenties looking unkempt in black turtlenecks and soft black caps sit in the front seat, one of them at the wheel. The black of their outfits is relieved by a block print red 'R' over the left breast.

"Hi," Butch says casually in his odd rasping voice, he tosses his shortish teal hair parted down the middle, and fixes his intense dark brown eyes on her. His voice came from a long bout of childhood bronchitis, it bothers some people, but Cassidy finds it alluring. "So these are your pals?" she says trying to sound as casual as he does.

"Yep," he says offhandedly, "Rocket gang members, the most efficient and feared pokémon thieves in the world."

"So what are we doing with these guys? Aren't we smart enough to do stuff on our own?" she asks irritably.

"Because they need young trainers in their operation. We can pass as kids on their pokémon jouneys and get into all kinds of places adult members have trouble getting at."

"So? Why not just do that ourselves?"

"Here's the deal, they can give us Pokédexes, pokémon and other credentials that would take us months to forge or steal," Butch looks indecently proud of his discovery.

"Sounds too good to be true to me," Cassidy observes.

"Look, are you in or not?" Butch challenges.

"If you're in, so am I, but I think it'll be hard to get out once we're in," she says skeptically.

"Why would we want out? We get paid to make the suckers look like what they are."

"OK, but why start on Mom's centre? I resent my loyalty being tested."

"S'matter? Worried it'll hurt your Mom? It never bothered her to care more about pokémon and foster kids than you," he casts down the gauntlet.

She mentally picks it up and says, "Yeah, you're right," but her eyes say otherwise.

He chooses to ignore Cassidy's doubts, "These guys will get us out of town. Lemme tell 'em where to pick us up. Then we'll walk to the centre. Here, you might need this. He hands her a four inch switchblade knife.

"Do you really think I'm gonna cut my Mom or her friends?"

"You will, if you haveta," he grins.

She blinks, looks at the lethal tool, swallows and pockets it in her jacket. "Well, let's get over there. I'll discuss the layout and who's on the night shift as we walk," she says.

*****************************************

Jessie knows the place pretty well, she doesn't want Jill or Amanda of the night staff to see her, they both get along with Cassidy too well. They would surely get all upset and call social services or the cops and get her charged with trespassing or something. She finds the ground floor window that is kept ajar to keep the furnace room cool. She jimmies it up with a two-by-four from the centre's dumpster and crawls into the centre. She knows she's going to have to be quick to find Joy still in the building near eight PM. She works her way along the canary yellow hallways hoping Joy is doing a final tidy-up of her desk. She finds the office door ajar and taps on the door timidly with one knuckle. She peeps around the door, Joy is looking up from her desk. "Yes?"

"Um....Mom? It's Jess," Jessie offers timorously.

Joy looks confused and flushes a bit, "I don't know if I should talk to you. Why shouldn't I call social services right now young lady?"

"I wanted to say so long Mom....if you'll still let me call you that," Jessie says softly.

"I guess I can stand it. Cassidy was in one of her special moods today, so I came here to work when Geoff got home. Her face will never be the same, she has no room for forgiveness. But I have a little," Joy sighs.

"I figured you wouldn't want to hold Cass's hand too long after the doctor's appointment. I'm really sorry, but Cass was more jealous than I expected, and I guess...I don't have much self control."

"I know dear, I was your age once. Sometimes my best friends became my worst enemies overnight. But I never permanently damaged anybody. I wish your childhood had been less horrific before we came to you, but I can't accept what you did. No civilized person does that," Joy's eyes are very sad.

"I know that, but I was scared and angry, you don't know how it was..." Jessie parries defensively.

"And how was it?" Joy challenges.

Jessie freezes, thinks about it and says, "I...I...can't...it would be telling."

"I'm sorry to hear that the Law of the Jungle still applies to puberty my dear. What else did you want to say?"

"I still want to go into pokémon nursing," Jessie states quietly.

"I don't know what I can do about it. I can recommend your character, especially where it concerns pokémon, but your grades, and I can't easily gloss over your recent...actions," Joy says in a measured tone.

"I know. That's OK. I guess I wanted you to know. Somehow I'm gonna give it a shot. Thanks for being so kind to me, I'd almost forgotten the meaning of the word," Jessie is a little tearful.

"Oh Jessie, you've got such a warm heart under that tough hide!" Joy says hugging the girl tightly, "I won't turn you in, but you've got to go back or you'll have nothing but trouble."

"I'll be alright...Mom," Jessie says with her eyes shut tight.

"I guess I'll just leave you here. You can find your way out. Be good Jessica," Joy says as she straightens up and picks up her evening's paperwork for home.

"Bye," Jessie says almost whispering. And Joy is gone.

*****************************************

Cassidy leads Butch to the same window Jessie used to enter the building. "Hmmmm," Butch says appraisingly after looking at the window's condition and the discarded piece of lumber. "Looks like someone's trying to get in on our action. Keep an eye out for trouble Cass."

Cassidy inhales and holds her breath, letting it go slowly through her teeth, and feels the butt end of the knife in her jacket. She really isn't interested in hurting anybody, not even some common burglar. She promises herself to use the knife in self defence and calms down a bit.

They crawl in through the window, and drop to the floor looking around warily. "The main pokémon storage area is ahead on the left, across from Mom's office," Cassidy says.

They start down the hall and turn the corner and run smack into. Jessie!

The preoccupied girl hears footfalls and looks up, and gasps in horrfied surprise. The threesome, separated by no more than two metres, eye each other with shock in pindrop silence.

"Well, look what the cat dragged in," Butch says sotto voce.

"Be silent Butch!" hisses Cassidy.

"What are you two doing here? Your Mom's just left Cassidy," Jessie offers lamely.

Cassidy reaches involuntarily into her pocket for the knife and works the catch with her thumb, it snaps into glistening life. She holds it in front of her at arm's length. "We're here to pick up a few pokémon for the famous Rocket Gang. What do you make of that bitch?" she says in a cool nasty voice.

Butch stares at his partner in wonder, then smiles coolly, "This oughta be fun," he sneers.

Jessie is not exactly surprised at this turn of events after minimal reflection, she simply says, "But Cassidy, your own Mom. Doesn't family mean anything to you?"

"Funny thing for the foundling punching bag to say," Cassidy says bitterly, "Being in a family isn't all that wonderful when the folks don't pay any attention, and try to give you friends from broken homes."

"But..." Jessie begins. "No buts," Cassidy says wagging her left index finger reprovingly, "You're not me Jess. They never understood or cared enough to try to know me. I'm stronger than they are, and I don't stand for weaklings..." she trails off and starts again, "Including you!" She advances on Jessie with the blade swaying like a cobra preparing to strike.

Jessie is like a bird in the snake's eyes watching the blade approach her face. It stops a centimetre short of the soft flesh of her cheek. "This is too easy," breathes Cassidy, "Just one flick of the wrist...".

"Get it over with!" interjects Butch, "We've got a job to do here."

Cassidy says "Just a minute dearie, I want Jess to suffer like me."

Jessie looks into her tormentors violet eyes with steel in her own blue eyes, "Go ahead Cass. It's just. I'll bear it, I can be every bit as strong as you."

The blonde inhales and sighs. The resolve slips from her eyes, she looks over her shoulder at Butch revealing a sudden anguish. "What's your problem? She's gonna take it like the man she is," Butch says cruelly.

She turns back, and looks at Jessie with a hint of ache. "C'mon Cass. I could disarm you now. What's stopping you?" Jessie asks without a trace of taunting.

"I can't," Cassidy gasps. "Look, Jess I'm gonna let you suffer all right. No justice in this world. Every time you see your perfection in the mirror remember that you destroyed mine. If someone ever cuts you, recall me," and she lowers the weapon from Jessie's face looking at it, crestfallen. "C'mon Butch we've got some pokémon to lift. See ya around Jessie."

Jessie watches them go, she's not going to the authorities, that's certain. Blame for the theft might well fall on her she believes. "I'd better make tracks," she thinks. She turns and walks back to the open window, crawls out, and fades into the night.


End file.
